For the last few years, ToS FM's playerbase has been in decline. This is largely for demographic reasons (a substantial portion of our players were teenagers who have since gone to college). In a few months we'll transition to a new forum which will cause a lot of players to become less active. The problem will only get worse as the playerbase goes from college to the workforce, and in a few years the bulk of our players will start to form families, at which point ToS FM will die.

In order to reverse this trend, it is necessary to recruit new players. At present, there is only one viable source of new players available to us, ToS itself.

Even with the move to pay-to-play, there are still tens of thousands of people who play ToS. If we could grab even one percent of them we'd rival MU and MS. And it would be trivially easy for the devs to add "Want to play the legendary long form of Town of Salem? Check out the Forum Mafia section of our forums!" as one of those rotating tips that show before games. It would be highly visible and in a space not allocated for commercial advertising.

Now I know the response of course. BMG is a business and has no reason to advertise a non-profitable section of its forums. Well, let's give them a reason. There are a number of tacky things we could do in exchange for advertising. Here are a few examples:

Restrict Episodes to Coven ownersRestrict games with certain experimental roles in them to Coven usersOffer paid spectating

All of these things would be tolerable annoyances (for us) that would make advertising FM a better deal (for BMG) than telling people what jesters are. The FMods should immediately enter into discussions with the devs regarding an agreement of this sort. As an added benefit, if there were even a slight profit to be made from FM, it would drastically improve the odds of the devs not mass deleting FM during the forum switch.

With all that said, we should never implement scrolls, taunts, or any other system which would make the game even indirectly pay-to-win.

James2 wrote:The problem will only get worse as the playerbase goes from college to the workforce, and in a few years the bulk of our players will start to form families, at which point ToS FM will die.

Bold of you to assume someone will marry me

My discord is Disguiser#5127So loud,so angry...So dead.

Spoiler:FM wins (And yeah I can win games at FM)

8C:AgentSFM13:Executioner8D:EscortCFM14(TF2 Mafia):DemomanNFM21:ConsortCFM17(Why did I play this):CitizensansNFM27:Agent10F:Danny PhantomVFM6(ALL ME):Citizen11F(Balanced game but then ladd joins):MarshalTFM41:False DetectiveSFM26:LookoutVFM16:SheriffVFM17:Villager13G:Citizen15B:Vigilante16D:Vigilante16G:CitizenSFM50:Hydra slot

James2 wrote:The problem will only get worse as the playerbase goes from college to the workforce, and in a few years the bulk of our players will start to form families, at which point ToS FM will die.

almost all FM players (who don't have coven) are forced to get coven in order to play some FM games

thus far less incentive for the current FM player base to play such FM games

all so that some coven players can feel more special in having access to such FM games which they already would have had anyway without the restriction

the only real positives that come about from this is devs have an excuse to earn money (which doesn't help anyone but the devs) and there is an incentive for devs to advertise FM (which may attract some new players, but also deters the active player base in some respects)

in every other respect it's a pretty stupid idea; it's especially punishing to the current active FM player base

Last edited by Flake on Fri Mar 15, 2019 9:00 am, edited 3 times in total.

almost all FM players (who don't have coven) are forced to get coven in order to play some FM games

thus far less incentive for the current FM player base to play such FM games

all so that some coven players can feel more special in having access to such FM games which they already would have had anyway without the restriction

the only real positives that come about from this is devs have an excuse to earn money (which doesn't help anyone but the devs) and there is an incentive for devs to advertise FM (which may attract some new players, but also deters the active player base in some respects)

in every other respect it's a pretty stupid idea; it's especially punishing to the current active FM player base

why did you edit 3 timesalso I would have to use my alt to play some FM games and I want to stick with this account so I second this

Remember the Fallen. Protect their Name.You've all probably met me in some form or another.

almost all FM players (who don't have coven) are forced to get coven in order to play some FM games

thus far less incentive for the current FM player base to play such FM games

all so that some coven players can feel more special in having access to such FM games which they already would have had anyway without the restriction

the only real positives that come about from this is devs have an excuse to earn money (which doesn't help anyone but the devs) and there is an incentive for devs to advertise FM (which may attract some new players, but also deters the active player base in some respects)

in every other respect it's a pretty stupid idea; it's especially punishing to the current active FM player base

why did you edit 3 timesalso I would have to use my alt to play some FM games and I want to stick with this account so I second this

i always post something and then realise something i forgot to add or need to change for some reason, lol

don't make them intrusive and a good way to retain players is to actually make good players because a lot people just migrate to MU which is totally justifiable, only reason i havent is because they're hyper active and i can barely keep up

don't make them intrusive and a good way to retain players is to actually make good players because a lot people just migrate to MU which is totally justifiable, only reason i havent is because they're hyper active and i can barely keep up

FM ad campaign let's go

My discord is Disguiser#5127So loud,so angry...So dead.

Spoiler:FM wins (And yeah I can win games at FM)

8C:AgentSFM13:Executioner8D:EscortCFM14(TF2 Mafia):DemomanNFM21:ConsortCFM17(Why did I play this):CitizensansNFM27:Agent10F:Danny PhantomVFM6(ALL ME):Citizen11F(Balanced game but then ladd joins):MarshalTFM41:False DetectiveSFM26:LookoutVFM16:SheriffVFM17:Villager13G:Citizen15B:Vigilante16D:Vigilante16G:CitizenSFM50:Hydra slot

don't make them intrusive and a good way to retain players is to actually make good players because a lot people just migrate to MU which is totally justifiable, only reason i havent is because they're hyper active and i can barely keep up

A lot of you missed the point. None of these things would be good for FM in themselves. Rather, they'd be tolerable annoyances in exchange for a larger playerbase. And they could also be tweaked, e.g. by grandfathering existing FM players.

Of course if the devs would advertise FM in-game in exchange for us simply having ads in this section, that would be better.

Here's my story of why I left FM (and why I came back):Spoiler:I loved TOS when i was 14, I played it everyday, almost too much to the extent that I'd be playing it more often than not. Then, I found the forums and fell in love with FM. Unfortunately, shortly after my first game started, my laptop's internet unfortunately blocked both TOS and the forums, except when I was at school. I really tried to make FM work, but playing only on weekdays during school hours proved to be hard because not a lot of people would be active, and then I'd be prodded in the evening hours or on the weekends. Summer was even worse, because then I'd have barely any access whatsoever. I tried playing on mobile, but even my phone's internet blocked the forums so I would have to sneak my tablet (my parents were pretty strict back then). After I had to replace out of multiple games, I gave up on the site completely. When I was 16, my phone finally stopped blocking the forums, and I rediscovered my love for FM, playing two games. Unfortunately, I got really busy and in the midst of that I forgot about this websites existence. I finally got to college, and I was sorting through my old email, and found old emails from the forums. Now that I have my own laptop, I don't have to worry about anything preventing me from logging onto the website, and I can actually join games on my own time whenever I'm available. I was saddened to see that most of the players back from my sentimental days of early 2015 had deserted the site or stopped playing the game, but I am glad that there are plenty of players that arrived since I was forced to leave. I'm glad I found the site again, and I really do want the site to continue. I was forced to leave because of troubles on my end, and I really don't want to leave again due to a dwindling player base, so I hope whatever happens in the future can lead to the FM base thriving as it used to.

James2 wrote:Of course if the devs would advertise FM in-game in exchange for us simply having ads in this section, that would be better.

So why can't we just do that?

If the devs would go for it that'd be great. The problem is that it would require them to spend time on the forum software, which they're unlikely to do at this time. Whereas the other options could be implemented without any dev effort (aside from adding an FM advertisement to the list of pre-game tips).

James2 wrote:Of course if the devs would advertise FM in-game in exchange for us simply having ads in this section, that would be better.

So why can't we just do that?

ah, I see you havent heard of the dev's religion known as unity. Basically, unity is first.

I mean they are kinda on a time limit to finish the Unity client before it's literally impossible to play ToS Flash through any browser that receives updates.

my exact point. There is also the changes which have been waiting until the bigger ones are done and even if the devs feel like they will program in an ad for FM that could mean a loss of money because less people buying scroll packs and tp packs

James2 wrote:For the last few years, ToS FM's playerbase has been in decline. This is largely for demographic reasons (a substantial portion of our players were teenagers who have since gone to college). In a few months we'll transition to a new forum which will cause a lot of players to become less active. The problem will only get worse as the playerbase goes from college to the workforce, and in a few years the bulk of our players will start to form families, at which point ToS FM will die.

In order to reverse this trend, it is necessary to recruit new players. At present, there is only one viable source of new players available to us, ToS itself.

Even with the move to pay-to-play, there are still tens of thousands of people who play ToS. If we could grab even one percent of them we'd rival MU and MS. And it would be trivially easy for the devs to add "Want to play the legendary long form of Town of Salem? Check out the Forum Mafia section of our forums!" as one of those rotating tips that show before games. It would be highly visible and in a space not allocated for commercial advertising.

Now I know the response of course. BMG is a business and has no reason to advertise a non-profitable section of its forums. Well, let's give them a reason. There are a number of tacky things we could do in exchange for advertising. Here are a few examples:

Restrict Episodes to Coven ownersRestrict games with certain experimental roles in them to Coven usersOffer paid spectating

All of these things would be tolerable annoyances (for us) that would make advertising FM a better deal (for BMG) than telling people what jesters are. The FMods should immediately enter into discussions with the devs regarding an agreement of this sort. As an added benefit, if there were even a slight profit to be made from FM, it would drastically improve the odds of the devs not mass deleting FM during the forum switch.

With all that said, we should never implement scrolls, taunts, or any other system which would make the game even indirectly pay-to-win.

All 3 of your suggestions will do the opposite of expanding the playerbase. For example, a lot of players don't even play TOS and restricting episodes to Coven owners significantly reduces the playerbase for those games.

BMG could just be nice and advertise FM or maybe they can if FM raises money for BMG, which I doubt will be that effective. There really isn't a good solution.